my mother laughs
and something comes alive in me
My mother has soft and silly parts, she forgets. So do I. They tend to tuck themselves away while we’re together. Our relationship often residing in a fraught place, an unyielding vice grip, we talk in different languages. When I can, I remind her of that silliness. Tease it out of her. Bring a lightness, an ease out of hiding. It’s no small feat. To coax someone back, even temporarily, to a forgotten version of themselves.
Those moments are some of my favourites between us. The playfulness. The humour we fall into. Most of my attempts at complimenting her are swiftly rebuffed, and I long for her to see herself the way I do, the way many others do and have. That she could see the abundance of amazing qualities, the many facets she carries. Every day my knowledge, then awe of her expanding, multiplying. She doesn’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either. We have chronically low self-worth. We are related, after all.
This is an ode to my mother.
So often under-appreciated, under-valued, chronically complex and misunderstood, a woman containing fascinating multitudes that I feel lucky to know, and to receive my lifes blood from. I remind myself as often as I can of a phrase I heard somewhere, that goes:
“Be gentle with your mother. This is her first time living too.”
The other day I watched the episode of The Bear where Nat goes into labour. Without going into too much detail, or revealing spoilers, every second of the scene deeply moved me. There is such natural, effortless intimacy between mother and daughter, even after decades of tension and despair. They suck you instantly into their whirlpool of emotion. Despite being almost estranged from each other, we watch their damaged, but unbreakable tie immediately strengthen in a time of need. Mutual need. Nat needing support at this pivotal moment, and DD simply needing to feel needed.
They hold each other so tenderly, as though the other could easily crumble between their fingertips. With every movement of their eyes, so much is subtly yet powerfully conveyed, reverberating across the screen. I saw myself in it. And lost myself in it. Each look shared holding masses, reminding me of a gaze I’ve both given and received many times.
One that says a lot with very little, and mostly contains so many ‘you will never knows.’ Aka: you will never know much you mean to me, how much I’ve suffered, how much I’ve sacrificed, how much I think of you, how much I appreciate you, how sorry I am, how much I wish things could be, and had been, different.
This scene is sewed behind my eyelids, replaying every time I close them, permanently etched into the fabric of my being. It serves as a makeshift plaster I’ve placed on a very sticky, open wound. Like the entirety of My Mother Laughs by Chantal Akerman. And these lyrics by Julia Jacklin,
Don’t want her to change
Or feel bad for lifes remainder
Oh, I just wish my own mother was
Less of a stranger.
